There seems to be a good deal of confusion regarding the Curia’s recent announcement that cohabiting VIPs – mainly members of parliament – cannot attend Sunday’s Pontifical Mass on the Floriana Granaries accompanied by their partners.
This curious fact was first revealed by the Sunday edition of this newspaper, and almost instantly a rumour spread like wildfire that the same edict was applicable to anybody in a relationship outside marriage – be they VIPs or no.
Although the impression turns out to be incorrect, the underlying assumption is entirely understandable. In fact it remains difficult, very difficult to understand how the Archbishop’s Curia would apply such blatant discriminatory measures to only one sector of the population... for all the world as though the Church exacts different values from its members according to their status in society.
In any case, to counter any misapprehension, the Curia on Monday issued a ‘clarification’ to reiterate that everyone – with the exception of those formally invited for the VIP area – is invited to attend, regardless of their precise marital status. But in truth, this reassurance has only served to deepen existing doubts about both the wisdom and the propriety of this unusual prohibition.
Whichever way one chooses to look at it, the Archbishop’s logic remains very hard to fathom. Ostensibly, the Church’s justification is that it cannot be seen to ‘condone’ cohabitation in any way. But this only raises a number of other questions, such as: does the Church condone cohabitation when it allows such partners to attend ordinary Sunday masses - i.e., those not concelebrated by His Holiness Pope Benedicr XVI?
Furthermore - why limit the edict only to the issue of marriage? Admittedly this forms an integral part of the strategic - some would say political - purpose this visit so clearly intends to serve, as illustrated by the Vatican’s secretary of state Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, in a letter to the Maltese people last Saturday..
But if the ‘sanctity of marriage’ lies alongside the ‘defence of human life’ at the basis of the Pope’s visit... then why has the Archbishop’s Curia not also informed parents of children born through in vitro fertilisation therapy (IVF) - a medical practice ‘forbidden’ by Church teachings, on grounds similar to the ban on abortion – that their children are not welcome for the Pontifical Mass on Sunday? Or are we to understand that, by allowing these children to attend the Pontifical Mass, the Church has now ‘sanctioned’ the practice of assisted fertilisation?
Nor do the anomalies end here. Like so many other aspects of this visit, the attitude towards cohabiting couples also exposes the deep-seated hypocrisy underscoring the entire divorce debate.
For reasons outlined above, it seems the Church has no objection to unmarried or separated persons living in ‘sinful’ relationships... so long as the Pope is not present to see it with his own eyes. For the remaining 363 days of the year, however, such couples are welcome to attend Mass together – suggesting that the important thing in the eyes of the Church is only the appearance of virtue, and not virtue itself.
Besides, there is a curious Catch-22 situation lurking in the wings. After all, many of the cohabiting couples in question would be perfectly happy to get married, if only they were given the opportunity. After all, some of these couples are in their present situation precisely because their former marriages have broken down. Those less fortunate who do not meet the criteria necessary for a Church (or State) annulment, are therefore condemned by a lack of local divorce legislation never to get married, or regularise their unions in the eyes of the Law.
Ironically, however, it is the Catholic Church that now condemns them: the same Church which fought so hard and for so long to prevent them from ever being able to marry in the first place.
Meanwhile, the proviso whereby the same Church now recognises civil marriages may also unwittingly serve to admit the possibility of divorce through the backdoor. For though divorce remains unobtainable directly from a Maltese court, the country still recognises all divorces granted by overseas jurisdictions... which also means that among the married couples welcomed by His Holiness next Sunday, there may be several who are in fact divorcees.
This curious situation – whereby cohabiting partners are now snubbed by the Church, because of a situation the selfsame Church helped bring about herself – is perhaps best summed up by one of the affected MPs, Jeffery Pullicino Orlando, who told our newspaper that: “Individuals in my situation would be given the opportunity of a civil marriage, if legislation allowing divorce were to be passed by the Maltese Parliament. But the local Curia is working hard to prevent this from happening...”
It remains to be seen how long this manifestly hypocritical situation will be allowed to persist, in a country that is now officially ‘more Catholic than the Pope’.
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